"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

02 April 2010

What the papal preacher did not preach. . .

The papal preacher did N.O.T. say that the Church's current problems are comparable to the historical persecution of the Jews in terms of severity, duration, or malice.

He quoted a Jewish friend of his who said that anti-Catholic prejudice results from the same sort of stereotyping--tarring the whole group with the sins of a few members of the group--that often leads to anti-Semitic violence.

IOW, he is talking about the underlying mob mentality that frees the dark hatreds of individuals and supplies apparently plausible reasons for violence against the hated group.

He NEVER says that the Pope or the Church is enduring the exactly the same kind of violence that Jews have suffered historically or currently.

Of course, this won't stop the Professional Victims Groups from seizing on the occasion to shudder in faux indignation and spend the weekend pretending to cringe away from the uber-violent Catholic Church.

7 comments:

Pope Benedict's personal preacher has compared criticism of the Pope over the Church's widening paedophilia scandals to "the collective violence suffered by the Jews".

Speaking in a Good Friday sermon in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, Father Raniero Cantalamessa quoted from a letter he said he had received from a Jewish friend.

He says his friend wrote that the the shifting of personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt reminded him of the most shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.

Angry reaction

Jewish communities around the world have reacted angrily.

Rabbi David Goldberg, from the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London, says the comments are out of touch but not malign in intent.

"My reaction is now more one of sorrow, that a man could have made such a pitifully inept analogy to try and defend the church," he said.

Rabbi Marvin Hier from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in the United States agrees.

"The Church should know better," he said.

"There is no comparison between collective guilt assigned against the Jews, which resulted in the death of tens of millions of innocent civilians, to the so-called accusations levelled against perpetrators," he said.

Rabbi Marvin Hier says to make the remarks on Easter Friday in Saint Peter's Basilica is outrageous, even if Father Cantalamessa was quoting a Jewish friend.

"It's like, I will quote the Jewish friend who says the world is flat. Doesn't mean I need to quote it on Easter Friday in the presence of the Pope," he said.

"It's a stupid remark and the comparison is ridiculous. It's a person who doesn't know history.

"The difference is that tens of millions of people died because of the other comparison, because of the collective guilt.

"Here, there's no collective guilt. The charges have been levelled against priests who have abused their calling and the hierarchy that covered it up."

Rabbi Hier called for a high-ranking Vatican official to denounce the comments.

"If for some reason the Pope doesn't want himself [to] say that the comparison is shameful, because he himself has been brought into the scandal involved in the priests, he could have the Vatican secretary of state say it," he said.

The timing and nature of the controversial sermon has not been lost on the Jewish leader closest to the Vatican.

The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, reportedly laughed in seeming disbelief when asked about Father Cantalamessa's remarks.

He told the New York Times, "With a minimum of irony, I will say that today is Good Friday.

"When they pray that the Lord illuminate our hearts, so we recognise Jesus, we also pray that the Lord illuminate theirs."

The Vatican's official spokesman says the comments were the priest's "private thoughts" and do not reflect the church's official position.

While I don't think Fr. Cantalamessa said anything that warrants all the handwringing, I do think it wasn't very good timing to bring connect the current manufactured outrage with an issue so sensitive to the Jewish people. It just gave the MSM another stick with which to beat the Church.

The world must destroy him. Pope Benedict must suffer this for the sordid, liberal agenda to succeed.

The Pope and the Catholic Church are the main impediments to liberals replacing God and His Commandments (as the absolute end all and be all) with their dictatorial dictats on abortion as health care; sexual exploitation, er, freedom; sanctification of sodomy; etc.

The anti-Christian bigot/liberals treat the Holy Father and his unjust suffering in the same way - no mercy, exaggerations, distortions, omissions, repetition, repetition, repetition - as 'the powers that be' treated Jesus as they handed Him over to Pontius Pilate.